Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

Quotes about:

• The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Inspirational, Memories, Future

  109 Copy quote

• The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Change, Success, Leadership

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  100 Copy quote

• Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountains which sustain life, not the top.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Mean, Unique, Reality

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  75 Copy quote

• Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Quality, Who Cares, Doe

  88 Copy quote

• Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Creativity, Boredom, Periods

  4 Copy quote

• A person isn't considered insane if there are a number of people who believe the same way. Insanity isn't supposed to be a communicable disease. If one other person starts to believe him, or maybe two or three, then it's a religion.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  God, Atheist, People

  "Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals". Book by Robert Pirsig, 1991.

  115 Copy quote

• To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Life, Wisdom, Future

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (ZAMM)". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  68 Copy quote

• In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Moving, Car, Gone

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974.

  54 Copy quote

• Is it hard?' Not if you have the right attitudes. Its having the right attitudes thats hard.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Attitude, Hard, Ifs

  24 Copy quote

• every answer one finds leads to ten more questions. The more we learn the less we know.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Answers, Knows, Ten

  8 Copy quote

• When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Mean, Challenges, Care

  Robert M. Pirsig (2009). “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values”, p.34, Harper Collins

  18 Copy quote

• The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Encouraging, Wisdom, Hiking

  60 Copy quote

• In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Country, Air, Mind

  16 Copy quote

• Art is anything you can do well. Anything you can do with quality.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Art, Quality, Wells

  NPR Interview, 1974.

  20 Copy quote

• It's so hard when contemplated in advance, and so easy when you do it.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Easy, Contemplating, Hard

  "Be The CEO Of Your Job" by Brad Feld, www.businessinsider.com. February 2, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

• The best students always are flunking. Every good teacher knows that.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Teacher, Students, Very Good

  6 Copy quote

• When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Blessed, Thinking, Insanity

  75 Copy quote

• The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Nature, Real, Thinking

  20 Copy quote

• It's not the 'nice' guy who brings about real social change. 'Nice' guys look nice because they're conforming. It's the 'bad' guys, who only look nice a hundred years later, that are the real Dynamic force in social evolution.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Real, Nice, Years

  8 Copy quote

• It's better not to see than to see wrongly.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Vision, Awe, Seeing

  7 Copy quote

• Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Inspirational, Travel, Littles

  19 Copy quote

• We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Friendship, People, Littles

  17 Copy quote

• Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control over society ... fascism, a program for the social control of intellect.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Intellectual, Socialism, Communism

  Robert M. Pirsig (1991). “LILA An Inquriry into Morals”

  7 Copy quote

• You are never dedicated to do something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Religious, Knowledge, People

  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance pt. 2, ch. 13 (1974)

  29 Copy quote

• The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Technology, Giving, Mind

  52 Copy quote

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